


Spring of the Patriarch

by potatototer



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, and by patriarch i mean gender is a construct and nobody should pay attention to my titles, anyway here's yakuroo over the course of year three, today on who's the real patriarch of nekoma?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26185438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatototer/pseuds/potatototer
Summary: Kai had left them at the crosswalk by the Family Mart and it was, as ever, Kuroo and Yaku walking home together, side by side.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Yaku Morisuke
Comments: 8
Kudos: 97





	Spring of the Patriarch

**Author's Note:**

> kuroken this kuroken that but everyone knows kenma isn't dumb enough to date kuroo. yaku on the other hand

“It should’ve been you,” Kuroo said. Kai had left them at the crosswalk by the Family Mart and it was, as ever, Kuroo and Yaku walking home together, side by side, though for once, there was very little bickering.

“Liberos can’t be team captain,” Yaku replied, very patiently. 

“Yeah. But still.”

They passed the local supermarket, which was having a promotion on their hot food for the week. Yaku was tempted. He would ordinarily have made some stupid bet with Kuroo and gotten a free meal out of it, but Kuroo was still frowning.

Annoyed, Yaku pinched his side with force. Kuroo yelped. “Snap out of it, idiot.”

Kuroo straightened. After a beat, he said, “Maybe it should’ve been Kai.”

Then he and Yaku looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Yaku walked Kuroo home that day and stayed, ostensibly to celebrate but really, as he knew, to reassure the big buffoon his captainship wasn’t going to somehow destroy Nekoma the following year. Of course not. Kuroo was always the welcomer, having lured on half the team with his teasing good humor, and convinced them to stay by sheer force of volleyball magic. Kuroo didn’t know it – and with any luck he never would – but Yaku was a member of the population who played in part because of and for Kuroo, though maybe his reasons were a little different from the others. 

It was going to be fine because eventually Yaku got himself on Kuroo’s nerves badly enough for them to resume their stupid arguments with fervor, pushing all of Kuroo’s self-doubts – which Yaku could name, one by one – out of his mind. They had begun a shouting match over cantaloupe! No, _honeydew!_ before realizing they both just really wanted a watermelon and sprinted against each other back to the local supermarket.

Kuroo let Yaku win. Yaku knew that but didn’t get angry over it, for once, because whatever, it wasn’t like it was fair that the other boy had legs of – of – of something really fucking tall and annoying.

“Smack it,” Kuroo suggested.

“I am, you idiot. You go smack some.”

They smacked every watermelon in the bin. Yaku had no idea what sound they were looking for and, from the increasingly placid look on Kuroo’s face, neither did he.

“Just get the biggest one and let’s go,” Yaku sighed.

They smashed the watermelon outside and sat, crouched side by side, to eat. For all his cat-like grace, Kuroo was the messiest eater Yaku had ever met. There was watermelon juice dripping down his chin. When he grinned his sharp grin at Yaku, Yaku experienced the upsetting stomach-sinking sensation of very badly wanting to kiss the juice right off his team captain’s mouth.

* * *

Yaku didn’t get insecure, unlike Kuroo, but he did get jealous, unlike Kuroo. There was nothing to be done for his broken ankle – well, the doctor had prescribed rest and recuperation but Yaku had tried that for three days and decided it was boring – but it did make walking home with Kuroo an impossibility. Within two days of Nekoma coming home from qualifiers, the girls’ volleyball team had found out several of them also lived in Kuroo’s direction and took up Yaku’s position by Kuroo’s side with the cool authority that Yaku, limping on his crutches, would not have for weeks.

“They’re friends,” Kenma said, quietly. 

Yaku started, and immediately flushed. “Give a warning, Kenma.”

“Kuroo and the girls. They went to middle school together. It’s not because he’s replacing you.” Kenma turned back to his game. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that.”

Yaku liked Kenma a whole lot, but it didn’t mean he didn’t find the boy utterly disconcerting from time to time. “No?” he ventured.

It was a good thing Kenma walked with his head buried in his game because Yaku could hobble right alongside him to the station. Kenma offered him no help down the stairs, which Yaku could appreciate. He was surprised when Kenma walked with him to the same gates. 

“What stop are you?” Yaku asked.

“The same as you,” Kenma answered.

The same as –? Oh, right. Kenma and Kuroo were neighbors. He was about to ask why Kenma never walked home with them, but then smiled ruefully, because the answer was pretty clear. 

“You were about to ask me why I don’t walk home with you and Kuroo, right?” said Kenma. The hairs on Yaku’s arm raised. 

“You’ve got to stop doing that, Kenma,” Yaku told him.

Kenma ignored him. “I don’t like walking,” he said, which was obvious, and then added, “And he likes to spend time alone with you. Kai’s realized that, too. It’s why he always leaves you two at the Family Mart by the park.”

There was a long moment as Yaku digested all of that. “That’s cool,” he said, in lieu of a better answer. Then, because he didn’t think he wanted to be on this topic any longer, “Hey, I’ve been watching you set the past few days and…”

Yaku spent the whole weekend cooped up in his bedroom, trying not to think about _he likes to spend time alone with you_ and focusing instead on calculating just how much volleyball he could play with it still counting as rest and recuperation. He was giving himself a one-legged workout, bouncing one of his Molten volleyballs overhand, when there was a knock on his apartment door and the sound of Kuroo’s drawl greeting Yaku’s mother. The volleyball fell into his lap.

His door opened. “Hey, slacker,” Kuroo greeted. Then, seeing him on the ground with a ball in hand, Kuroo’s face curdled. “What the hell! You’re supposed to be resting!”

“Make up your damn mind,” Yaku grumbled. 

Kuroo hauled him up by his arms and dragged him bodily back onto his bed. “Honestly,” he was complaining. “You’d think Kenma really holds the _only_ brain cell on our team.” Then he flopped onto the bed next to Yaku, a hand splaying out to smack Yaku on the face. 

Yaku bit it. “Saw you with the volleyball girls,” he said, because he couldn’t resist. Then, because he really couldn’t resist, “Any luck?”

“Huh?” Kuroo had extracted his hand from Yaku’s mouth and was cradling it resentfully. 

“The girls,” Yaku repeated. 

“Michi and Yui? They live near us,” Kuroo said, dumbly. “Luck with what?”

Yaku squinted sideways at him. “Dinner plans, maybe?” 

“Oh,” Kuroo said, dragging out the syllable with dawning realization. “Nah.” A pause, where Yaku could feel Kuroo’s brain turning. “But I got you these.”

He rummaged in his tracksuit pockets to pull out a handful of crumpled vouchers, which he dropped carelessly on Yaku’s face. “Oops. Didn’t realize you were all the way down there.”

“Do you spit your gum into your pockets?” Yaku picked up the vouchers in utter disgust. Then he looked at them closer. “They’re all vouchers for two.”

“Yep,” said Kuroo, grinning, raising an eyebrow. “Take your favorite teammate out to dinner!”

 _He likes to spend time alone with you._ “I will,” said Yaku.

Kuroo’s eyebrow stayed raised. 

“Haiba Lev,” he clarified, and Kuroo threw a pillow at him but he was ready for it, so screw him.

* * *

The ball slipped off Kenma’s fingers and that was that. The buzzer, the ringer, the kicker, the trick and the twist and, of course, the game. There was Nishinoya Yuu, arms raised in exhausted, bemused victory. There was Kai Nobuyaki, a gentle arm slung across Yamamoto’s sobbing shoulders. And there was Kuroo Tetsuro, flat on his back.

For once, Yaku towered over him. “Get up, you good-for-nothing,” he said, emphasizing each word with a kick to his captain’s side. “What do you think your job’s for?”

It was a reminder, but even more so it was a challenge, eyebrows raised, arms crossed, stance wide. It was Yaku demanding, _Is this really the end?_

And Kuroo, picking himself back up, answering, _Fuck you_. _I’ve got this under control._

They shook hands and dried off and packed up and loaded the bus but couldn’t help trundling back into the arena as a team to watch Fukurodani’s match. In the bleachers Yaku sat above Kuroo and rolled his eyes every time Kuroo turned around to gauge his reaction to the plays happening on the court, which was exceedingly often, altogether _too_ often, and if Kuroo wanted to commentate with him why didn’t he just sit in the same row? Fukurodani won, and Kuroo looked at him. Yaku made a face.

Kenma caught him before they boarded the bus for the last time. “He doesn’t need cheering,” he said, rather urgently.

“I know that,” Yaku responded, surprised. He could name every one of Kuroo’s insecurities and none of them were about the match they’d lost earlier that day.

Kenma looked frustrated. “I mean,” he insisted, “You don’t have to be careful.”

Yaku stared. “About?”

“You can just tell him what you’re really thinking,” Kenma tried again, and then seemed actively disgusted with himself and clambered onto the bus without another word.

Yaku followed him on. A moment later, Kuroo plopped down comfortably next to Yaku.

“Oh captain, my captain,” Yaku simpered. 

They looked at each other and started snickering. “That’s the last time you’ll get to call me that,” Kuroo said. “Lucky you!”

“You had a pretty good run,” said Yaku.

“I think so, too,” said Kuroo, and smiled.

They walked home, as ever, with Kai, but it was long past sunset when Kai, his stomach rumbling, left them tearfully at the crosswalk by the Family Mart with promises to watch Fukurodani win again the next day. 

Then it was, as ever, Kuroo and Yaku walking home together, side by side, though for once, Yaku was telling Kuroo what he was really thinking. And Kuroo was responding, but with rather fewer words.

**Author's Note:**

> PERSONALLY i think cantaloupe has more rights than honeydew. but anyway kudos go to support melon supremacy. thank you very much for reading!


End file.
